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<blockquote data-quote="Terramotus" data-source="post: 4270207" data-attributes="member: 7220">Agreed.But one thing...&nbsp; I think you guys are WAAAAY overanalyzing those lines.&nbsp; They're not for you.&nbsp; They're not really for anyone here on ENWorld.&nbsp; D&amp;D is the gateway drug of RPGs.&nbsp; Some people will escalate in their usage, some won't.&nbsp; These blurbs give the people who might pick up the core rulebooks or some sort of starter set at Toys 'R Us some idea of what they're trying to accomplish.&nbsp; The incoherence allows them to branch out and figure out what they like about roleplaying while still staying with the D&amp;D system.&nbsp; WotC likes this, as did TSR, even if they didn't articulate it in such a way.It's like teaching someone to write.&nbsp; All sorts of &quot;rules&quot; get thrown out there in middle school.&nbsp; Passive voice is bad, use action verbs rather than &quot;be&quot; verbs, you shouldn't end a sentence with a preposition, etc.&nbsp; People with great facility with the written word feel free to break these rules all the time, but they're useful as a framework to teach youngsters how to actually string a sentence together and merge them into a coherent whole.The fact that [insert famous writer here] knows what he's doing and is allowed to have single word sentences and doesn't need to be told what verbs to use, or that a comma technically isn't necessary there doesn't invalidate giving that instruction to a fourth-grader.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Terramotus, post: 4270207, member: 7220"] Agreed. But one thing... I think you guys are WAAAAY overanalyzing those lines. They're not for you. They're not really for anyone here on ENWorld. D&D is the gateway drug of RPGs. Some people will escalate in their usage, some won't. These blurbs give the people who might pick up the core rulebooks or some sort of starter set at Toys 'R Us some idea of what they're trying to accomplish. The incoherence allows them to branch out and figure out what they like about roleplaying while still staying with the D&D system. WotC likes this, as did TSR, even if they didn't articulate it in such a way. It's like teaching someone to write. All sorts of "rules" get thrown out there in middle school. Passive voice is bad, use action verbs rather than "be" verbs, you shouldn't end a sentence with a preposition, etc. People with great facility with the written word feel free to break these rules all the time, but they're useful as a framework to teach youngsters how to actually string a sentence together and merge them into a coherent whole. The fact that [insert famous writer here] knows what he's doing and is allowed to have single word sentences and doesn't need to be told what verbs to use, or that a comma technically isn't necessary there doesn't invalidate giving that instruction to a fourth-grader. [/QUOTE]

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